Informality and Uzbek Migrant Networks in Russia and Turkey

This chapter explores the interconnections between informality, migrant agency and networks of trust and solidarity in hybrid political regimes. These processes will be illustrated through the comparative study of the Russian and Turkish migration regimes, specifically focusing on the case of Uzbek migrant workers and their patterns of residence, incorporation into the labour market, gendered experiences of migration, and experiences of agency and capacity to navigate an opaque legal regime. Through a focus on the life history of Pulat and his adventures in Moscow and Istanbul, the chapter reveals striking differences and similarities between the two cities in terms of migrant experience, moral assessment and legal adaptation. We draw on a multi-sited transnational ethnography of Uzbek migrant workers between Uzbekistan, Moscow and Istanbul that we conducted between 2014 and 2020, including six months of ethnographic fieldwork in Istanbul’s Fatih district between January 2019 and August 2020.